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Archives for 2011

A Bright Day at Brightworks

November 7, 2011 by keiron Leave a Comment

Thank you from Brightworks
Thank you from Brightworks

I was invited to visit Brightworks in San Francisco by my friend and Founder, Gever Tulley.

Back in 2005 he founded Tinkering School, a summer school for children based on the belief that they can build anything, and through building, learn anything. He’s written a book, 50 Dangerous Things (you should let your children do) and presented at TED a couple of times. And now he’s got his own extraordinary school.

The children were exploring a theme called “By Hand” and part of this was to see what it was like if you didn’t have a hand or perhaps what it was like if you had four. The children (of all ages 6-12) were incredibly creative, taping up body parts, adding articulating limbs to different parts of their body, seeing what it was like without a hand or just a few fingers.

I got a chance to come in and talk about my experiences and show them how I had adapted and used my different prosthetics for different situations. They got to see my high-tech, bionic hand as well as my low tech body powered hook.

It was great fun and they all made a card thanking me for coming in to visit.

Brightworks blew my mind, it was so unlike any school I remember from my childhood and all the children were so engaged and happy. Makes me wish I was a kid again!

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Time To Put Your Faith In Yourself

September 26, 2011 by keiron Leave a Comment

Fear, uncertainty and doubt…you may look at successful people and think “I wish I was like them and didn’t have all this fear, uncertainty and doubt” as you look to start your new venture…here’s the thing, those people have been successful despite having the same fears, uncertainty and doubt as you…not because they have none.

For most of us looking to start a new venture it’s the first time in our professional lives that there hasn’t been someone else that we can put our faith in. Whether that be a manager, a senior leader or a CEO. Hell, even as a co-founder of Kaboodle I was still able to put my faith in my fellow co-founder who came up with the original vision.

As you go it alone, it’s time to put your faith in yourself, your idea and your abilities to make it happen…and whilst it might seem subtle, anyone who’s been through it, I’m sure, will attest to it being a huge shift…employee to founder or even co-founder to founder…and not everyone has what it takes…the question is do you?

And if you do, how do you dance with the fears, the uncertainties and doubts so they don’t control you?

One strategy as you look at getting started is to look for validation along the way. Anyone familiar with Lean Startup methodology might be thinking about minimal viable product and customer discovery…very important, sure. However, there’s the validation of:

[list class=”bullet-minus”][li]Having a co-founder as crazy as you about your idea[/li] [li]Having people willing to put in sweat time on the side of their full time jobs to help you build out a proof of concept[/li] [li]Finding some advisors interested enough in what you are doing to inject their experience[/li] [li]Finding some angel investors or VCs who might be willing to write you a check[/li][/list]

The loneliest and darkest time is when it’s just you and your idea…it’s those that work out a way to build a movement around their idea that reap  the rewards of starting a new venture…and I assure you, they are no different from you.

[div3 class=”quote” class2=”quote-l” class3=”quote-r”]Faith is to believe what we do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what we believe.[/div3]

– Saint Augustine

How true…

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Bionic Eye – Deus Ex Human Revolution

August 27, 2011 by keiron Leave a Comment

Eye Borg
Eye Borg

A few weeks ago while I was in Toronto I connected with Rob Spence, a one-eyed film maker (see if you can notice his bionic eye in the photo) who is making a documentary on today’s cyborgs as part of a promo for the new video game Deus Ex Human Revolution.

Bionic Eye
Bionic Eye

He wanted to interview me on my experiences with my i-Limb hand and as curious as he was about my hand I was just as curious about his eye!

Rob damaged his eye in a shotgun accident as a kid and decided to have it removed a while back. Recently he worked with a couple of engineers to take a tiny wireless camera and build a bionic eye…it doesn’t connect to his optic nerve or anything, but it is really cool.

His documentary compares the cybernetics available in the video game Deus Ex, set in 2027, with state of the art prosthetics today to see how far away we are.

You can watch the video below, Rob did a great job and you’ll see a few segments of the interview he did with me.

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From Knee Boarding to Wake Boarding to Wake Surfing

July 31, 2011 by keiron 2 Comments

One Handed Wake Boarding
One Handed Wake Boarding

This last week Kerry and I were in Canada for our best friends wedding at Balsam Lake, Ontario. While there we got to play in boats on the lake and after my success knee boarding the other week I was up for giving anything a go.

I’d never wake boarded, even when I had two hands and wasn’t sure if I’d be able to pull up with one arm. After 2 attempts trying to hold on to the rope and failing it was third time lucky. With a slightly slower start I was able to keep hold and pull myself up and thanks to my years of snow boarding I was off to the races. What a blast!

Certainly tiring with only one arm, so for my next goes I donned my prosthetic hook to take some of the load, which helped greatly.

Waiting to Wake Surf
Waiting to Wake Surf

Then from wake boarding, to wake surfing – something entirely new to me. I was familiar with wake boarding, but I’d never heard of wake surfing.

Wake Surfing
Wake Surfing

You use a mini-surf board, your feet aren’t attached to the board and you need a wake boarding boat that has balast tanks to generate a huge wake…which you then surf.

You hold the rope and pull yourself up as the boat starts, then once the wake is established you surf it and drop the rope.

It’s wild, you’re actually surfing behind the boat as it motors along at 10 miles an hour or so.

You can watch the video below to see me in action…not bad for someone who’s never wake surfed before!

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